Merry Christmas!   I finally am getting back to the computer to blog for a minute about the last few weeks.  We have had an amazing few weeks in our campaign.  Our pancake supper and small business Saturday kicked off our fundraising campaign with a huge turnout.  I was blown away at all of the people that came out for those and I could never thank them enough for supporting COTA in honor of my little fella and our family.  Then we had our two restaurant give back nights.  Our first was at El Parian, our local mexican restaurant, and they were so generous in their helping and then a few nights later we were at the Woodshed BBQ for another give back night.  Again the Atwoods showed how much they love their community and the people that live in it.  Both of those were very successful events and this small town has shown up and shown out on every occasion.  Sometimes people dont like small towns but this has shown me just how important having a village can be!  Thank you friends!!  

We are currently working on a corporate and business mail out event.  We are trying to get Jacob’s story out there and raise awareness about the disease and organ donation.  This is a very big time for businesses and many only allow contribution requests during the month of December so that is our current project.  If you know of a business or corporation that would like to donate to this nonprofit in honor of Jacob’s Battle please let us know!  We will get them all of the information they need for tax purposes.

In January we will be doing at least two more fundraisers.  One will be selling the COTA paper icons and painting the town yellow with the sunshine logo with the donors name displayed on it.  We will also be selling Texas Roadhouse peanuts starting January 1st.  Again if you or your business would like to help us sell those please contact us and let us know.  We would love to work with you.  

Now an update on Jacob!  We had our first dentist appointment today at Childrens Hospital.  The dentist said his teeth look as well as can be expected for a kidney kid.  She said the discoloration is part of the disease.  :0(  It is mostly because of all of the medications he has been on in his short 20 months of life that has caused thecolor and brittleness of his teeth.  RIght now all we can do is continue caring for them the best we can and keep moving toward transplant.  Overall he did a great job for his first visit to a new clinic and doctor!  After the dentist we had bloodwork done.  All of that looked pretty good.  Only one medicine change and we will check labs again on Friday!

I think that is a good summary of the last few very very busy weeks around here.  Now we plan to enjoy some quality time for Christmas Eve and Christmas with our family.  We are blessed that they are close by but it is still nice for us to be able to all focus on the true meaning of Christmas and enjoy each other.   We will pray that everything goes smoothly and there are no hospital visits but we will also be praying for those that are spending this holiday inpatient.  I have 3 families that I know that arent as lucky as we are and they are spending these days in the hospital.  Please pray for these three friends and specifically for their infections and bodies to be healed.   They are all very strong believers and I am believing with them that God will heal them.  

Thank you again to everyone that has given in honor of Jacob and our family wishes all of you a very Merry Christmas!